With the housing market in a deep dive and builders going out of business, it wouldn’t seem to be the best time to try to sell $5,000 stoves.

But Mark Rutzick still spies opportunity for his St. Paul kitchen and bath distributor All Inc.

Up until a few years ago, All Inc. sold appliances and cabinets primarily to builders, developers and property managers and did little business with the general public.

But when the foundation of the housing market started to show cracks a year and a half ago, Rutzick, 54, and his brother Jim, 66, decided to take their company down a different path and focus on individual consumers.

They transformed All’s 18,000-square-foot warehouse into a retail showroom with more than a dozen kitchens and 35 appliance vignettes. Today, the sprawling space houses a wide variety of products — from purple refrigerators and eucalyptus-wood cabinets to induction stovetops that boil water in 90 seconds — enough to satisfy the wildest of kitchen dreams.

Though the company operates only one showroom, All boasts the largest display of cabinetry and Gaggenau and Viking appliances in Minnesota. The company also says it offers the most complete GE Monogram line in the Midwest. Other lines include Miele, Sub-Zero, Wolf, Maytag, Whirlpool and Jenn-Air.

“Trying to establish a base in a weak sales period is very difficult unless you can offer terrific sales or unique appliances,” says Dave Brennan, co-director of the Institute for Retailing Excellence at the University of St. Thomas. “But it sounds like, from a brand standpoint, they are really well-positioned.”

Rutzick’s challenge is to convince folks there’s something special inside the walls of the converted warehouse at 185 W. Plato Blvd.

But that’s nothing a little marketing can’t fix, Mark Rutzick said. The company soon will change its name and tagline to reflect its new direction to All Appliances & Cabinets: Transform your home … One wish at a time.

“Once they walk in here, they’ll think there is no other place to go,” he said. People come from Japan to go to the Mall of America, he pointed out.

TV advertising always has been a part of All Inc.’s marketing mix, but this year they’re using other tactics as well. The company sponsored the “Kitchen Stage” at the Minneapolis Home & Garden Show earlier this month, providing appliances for a celebrity cooking contest featuring local personalities. All also gave out a couple thousand gift cards offering $100 off or 10 percent off at All. “We’ve started to see some of them already,” Mark Rutzick said.

Sherman Rutzick, Mark and Jim’s dad, started All Inc. in 1947 after he returned from serving in the Army. The company put coin-operated laundry machines in apartment buildings. He also owned a dry-cleaning business.

“My dad’s really the ultimate entrepreneur,” Mark Rutzick said.

Mark didn’t join the business until 1988, after he sold his own company, Rock-a-fellas, which operated video games at bars, arcades and other retail stores.

It was Mark’s idea to use the contacts his father and brother Jim had cultivated among apartment complex owners to start an appliance sales arm at the company.

The model worked pretty well, and All’s revenue grew quickly during the 1990s, even though the company offered only a few lines of appliances.

“It was hard to get people to come buy from us because we didn’t have all the lines,” Mark Rutzick said.

That changed last year when Guyer’s Builder Supply in Plymouth went out of business. Many of the product lines Guyer’s carried are now featured in All’s showroom.

“We decided to take the lines in a down market and create a destination,” Rutzick said.

To some extent, All’s concentration in high-end appliances is helpful, Brennan said, because sales of higher-end products have been a bit more insulated from the shock of the recession. But as the recession wears on, even folks who make $200,000 are feeling poor, he said. “People are really deferring purchases unless they need to have it.”

Carla Warner of Warners’ Stellian, one of All’s competitors, says customers are definitely looking for deals.

“We’ve had to discount a little more than in the past,” she said.

While the company focuses on high-end products, Rutzick said a section of the store is dedicated to scratch-and-dent appliances that sell at lower price points. And through GE, All offers no-interest and no-payment financing. “That’s the discounting,” Rutzick said. “We’re just trying to build a base.”

All’s revenue dropped last year to $25 million from $35 million a few years earlier. The company also recently closed showrooms in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and St. Cloud. Those were tough decisions, Rutzick said, but they were made so that All emerges from the recession strong.

“The sun will shine and the earth will warm up and life will be good again,” he said.

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